Agriculture Secretary William Dar has recommended the “full reopening” of the agriculture sector once the Luzon lockdown ends next week to ensure stable food supply in the country despite the coronavirus crisis.
Dar said on Thursday that he had sent a letter to the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases, the temporary government body overseeing the Duterte administration’s response to the health crisis, expressing the need for the Department of Agriculture (DA) to fully implement new programs geared toward filling gaps in the value chain created by economic closures and limited operations forced by the lockdown imposed to halt the spread of the coronavirus in the Philippines.
Production must continue
“The [task force] allows optimum operations for agriculture, but I’m highly recommending maximum operations but still following physical distancing, use of face masks, and other [public health measures],” Dar said.
“This is essential so that food production continues. We always reiterate that the threat of hunger is as real as the COVID-19,” he added.
Although agriculture is already exempted from certain lockdown measures, Dar said restrictions on movement had derailed the implementation of the DA’s program to increase production, aimed at reducing dependence on imports, whose supplies have also been disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.
“We want operations to go full blast so long as we observe health measures,” Dar said. “Infections in the provinces are also few, and in cases where there are infections, that’s when we can implement a modified quarantine,” he added.
President Duterte is expected to decide this week whether to lift or loosen the lockdown to save the country’s P52-trillion, agriculture-dependent economy from a meltdown.
Sen. Christopher “Bong” Go, a former longtime aide to the President, told a radio interview earlier this week that the President was likely to ease the restrictions in areas with few infections and keep them in areas with high numbers of cases, such as Metro Manila.
Malacañang also said health experts and former heads of the Department of Health had recommended quarantine measures in areas with infections and easing the lockdown in areas with few or no coronavirus cases.
Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said no one recommended a “total lockdown,” scotching speculation on social media about a complete shutdown.
Public transport
The World Health Organization had cautioned against the lifting of restrictions all at once. A University of the Philippines study recommended a gradual easing of quarantine measures to stave off a resurgence of the coronavirus.
On Thursday, Roque said public transport may be allowed to resume, with the interagency task force directing health and transportation agencies to draft rules for reopenings.
“The Department of Transportation, Department of the Interior and Local Government, Department of Tourism, Department of Health and Bureau of Quarantine [were] directed to study and recommend protocols for the possible reopening of air, sea and land travel,” Roque said.
He said the rules should require physical distancing to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
Earlier, Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade said buses and trains may be allowed to resume operations on 30 percent capacity to make space for social distancing.
Roque said the interagency task force also ordered the preparation of rules for the surveillance of returning Filipino migrant workers and the provision of hotel rooms to shelter medical workers caring for coronavirus patients, transportation for them between the hotels and the hospitals, and disinfection chambers to protect them against infection. —WITH A REPORT FROM JULIE M. AURELIO